Dreamchild Barrie A. Wilson, PhD Professor, Humanities and Religious Studies, Building: SAL/Atkinson, 4700 Keele Street, , ON, Canada. M3J 1P3 Email: [email protected]

Abstract , released by Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment Ltd. in 1985 presents the story of the real of ’s Alice in putting her past in perspective. Set in 1932, and based on a real happening, Mrs. Alice Hargreaves is on her way to receive a doctorate from on the anniversary of the centenary of the birth of The Rev. (that is, Lewis Carroll). She is 80 years old. Dreamchild is the story of her coming to grips with the gift he had given her some 70 years earlier, as , aged 10, in 1862.

‘Dreamchild’ is the word Charles Dodgson used to refer to his many childhood female friends, many of whom were subjects for his , clothed, costumed or nude. Catapulted back in time, Mrs. Hargreaves (Old Alice) dredges up some disturbing memories.

This paper examines psychological triangular relationships presented by this remarkable film and looks at its use within biblical studies. The family constellation of Alice is probed, noting the singular role played by her Mathematics tutor, Charles Dodgson. The film focuses on a memorable event of July 4, 1862 – a picnic boat ride in which Dodgson tells the precocious Young Alice the nucleus of the story that became Alice in Wonderland. Something happened shortly after this event which caused a split between the Liddell family and Charles Dodgson.

Alice’s struggle concerns two kinds of memories about Dodgson: some benign, some foreboding. Through Wonderland characters created by Jim Henson, we are taken into a world that assaults Old Alice’s comfortable life of denial. We see Young Alice playing up to Dodgson and note his jealousy when males her age are depicted. By the end of the film, she finally achieves psychological resolution. We are left wondering, however, what was the real Alice of 1862 like? And Charles Dodgson – what were his motives and interests in Young Alice? Was he a romantic, pedophile or stalker?

I use this film in biblical studies to illustrate two key points. One has to do with the nature of artifacts of memory: texts, like memories are not transcripts. That is, they do not replay events as they actually unfolded but are reconstructions designed to meet present needs. Old Alice’s recollections some 70 years later parallel the New Testament gospels some 40 to 90 years later recasting the sayings and doings of .

Dreamchild and Biblical Studies -- page 1 Barrie A. Wilson, PhD, York University, Toronto In addition, difficult though it is for us now to reconstruct the lives of Young Alice and Charles Dodgson, it is even more difficult for us now to ascertain the sayings, doings and travels of such biblical personages as Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, Mary Magdalene or Paul. With Alice Liddell and Charles Dodgson, we are in the fortunate position of having documents that enable us to “go behind” the cultural artifact, the film Dreamchild, and so put the work into context. Letters, diaries, photographs and reminiscences of Dodgson abound. That is not the case with such biblical documents as the gospels where all we have is the cultural artifact and these often disagree.

This film provides an excellent introduction to problems of historical reconstruction….while providing fantastic entertainment as well!

1. Introduction I have used the film Dreamchild in my teaching for a number of years. It is an intriguing film, investigating some of the ambiguities concerning Lewis Carroll and his relationship to pre-pubescent women. I have also that it opens up in an enlightening and non-threatening manner some of the important theoretical issues relating to the critical study of biblical texts. These include the problem of the historical Jesus – how we can now reliably ascertain the sayings, doings and travels of the Jesus of the 20’s AD – as well as the nature of many biblical texts themselves as historical reconstructions.

In this paper I will investigate the main themes in Dreamchild and then show the parallels to biblical studies. In particular I will focus on the triangular psychological relationships this film depicts with great clarity.

Dreamchild was released in 1985 by Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment Ltd. The story concerns the real Alice of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland coming to grips with her past.

“Old Alice” as I shall call the Alice of 1932 is Mrs. Hargreaves and she is played by . “Young Alice,” that is, the 10-year old Alice Liddell of 1862 is played by

Dreamchild and Biblical Studies -- page 2 Barrie A. Wilson, PhD, York University, Toronto Amelia Shankley. plays The Rev. Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll). He has more recently appeared as Bilbo Baggins in Lord of the Rings and was the narrator of Prisoner of Paradise, the story of the Jewish actor and director, Kurt Gerron.1 The Director is Gavin Millar; Rick McCallum and , producers. Screenwriter was who has written scripts for eight other films released in the US and the UK. Of especial interest are the dark Alice in Wonderland characters created by the Jim Henson Creature Shop.2

2. Psychological Triangular Relationships in Dreamchild Life lived in a triangle is disturbing, painful, conflicted and seemingly without resolution. There are many kinds of relationship triangles.3 The stress and anxiety of living in a triangle often occurs in the present, for instance. We may be torn between two family members, two people, or two demands upon our time and emotional strength. The problem arises because we cannot eliminate one and so we are caught in the triangle of conflicting demands, battered by our and emotions back and forth, like a ping pong ball that cannot escape the table.

Dreamchild deals with a more complex triangular relationship: it involves the past. It has to do with memory cutting across seventy years. We are introduced early on to Mrs. Alice Hargreaves, the real Alice of Alice in Wonderland. The story is set in 1932 and she is on her way to receive a doctorate from Columbia University in on the anniversary of the centenary of the birth of The Rev. Charles Dodgson (that is, Lewis Carroll). She is 80 years old. It is the story of her coming to grips with the gift he had given her some 70 years earlier, as a young of 10 in 1862.

She is catapulted back in time through memory, to a series of events that occurred when she was 10 years old, particular to one event that took place on July 4, 1862. We see her struggling with long suppressed and very disturbing memories of Lewis Carroll as she recalls the events surrounding that memorable boat trip.

Dreamchild and Biblical Studies -- page 3 Barrie A. Wilson, PhD, York University, Toronto Key Dates

Alice Liddell/Alice Hargreaves: May 4, 1852 – November 15, 1934 Charles Dodgson: January 27, 1832 – January 14, 1898 Lewis Carroll: March 1, 1856 – still very much alive4

As Old Alice thinks through what she will say at Columbia’s Convocation where she will give the Commencement Address, she struggles with difficult memories. Oddly enough, on her voyage crossing the Atlantic, she does not seem to have prepared her speech. For seventy years, she does not seem to have confronted her past, especially her relationship with Charles Dodgson and his obvious interest in her. She has lived in denial for all these years.

The catalyst for recollection is complex. For one thing, she becomes disoriented by New York. She is confused by the commotion and impertinence of the Americans she meets. She does not know what they expect. She keeps saying, “I don’t understand. What do they expect of me?” What she does not understand is that they expect her to be Alice – the Alice in Wonderland – whereas, in her mind, she is clearly “Mrs. Hargreaves.” Secondly, she has the immediate stress of having to give a Convocation address at Columbia at which she is expected to speak of Lewis Carroll. Thirdly, memories are triggered by the journalist’s observation that they expect Lewis Carroll’s “dreamchild.”

That word is significant. “Dreamchild” dredges up memories she has long ignored. The word is the invention of The Rev. Charles Dodgson who uses this term, along with other such as “child-friends”, to describe his relationship with many young children, mostly females. We know this from his letters, most of which have been preserved.5 He, too, looked back sometime later on those remarkable events of July, 1862. Some 23 years later, in 1885, he wrote with nostalgia to Mrs. Hargreaves as follows, “I fancy this

Dreamchild and Biblical Studies -- page 4 Barrie A. Wilson, PhD, York University, Toronto will come to you almost like a voice from the dead, after so many years of silence – and yet those years have made no difference, that I can perceive, in my clearness of memory of the days when we did correspond. I am getting to feel what an old man’s failing memory is, as to recent events and new friends (for instance, I made friends, only a few weeks ago, with a very nice little maid of about 12, and had a walk with her – and now I can’t recall either of her names!) but my mental picture is as vivid as ever, of one who was, through so many years, my ideal child-friend. I have had scores of child-friends since your time: but they have been quite a different thing.”6 Clearly whatever the nature of his relationship with Alice Liddell, it was one of a kind.

Old Alice is propelled back in time to her youth, as a young girl in . Primarily through the impressions of Young Alice, but sometimes directly as Old Alice, she is forced to confront disturbing memories. The primary psychological triangular relationship explored in this film is between the Old and Young Alice with Charles Dodgson.

Old Alice 1932 age: 80

The Rev. Young Alice: Charles Dodgson 1862 (Lewis Carroll) age: 10 Age: 30 in 1862

Dreamchild and Biblical Studies -- page 5 Barrie A. Wilson, PhD, York University, Toronto Alice’s Family Constellation Young Alice, aged 10 in 1862, grew up in a scholarly household. Her father was the famous , Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, a remarkable man who devoted his life to the preparation of a Greek-English lexicon. This work is still the standard reference dictionary for anyone today studying ancient Greek, whether classical or biblical. It is a massive tome, still in print – 2438 pages in its latest edition. It not only lists Greek words with their English translation, but it tracks down known uses of each word in ancient Greek literature.

In addition to being the Dean of one of the largest colleges at Oxford, Henry Liddell was also Dean of the Cathedral in Oxford. The combination of clerical duties, along with a remarkable feat of scholarship, resulted in his being mostly an absentee father. This meant, too, that she was more vulnerable to adult male attention from other sources.

Alice grew up as a middle child, Lorina being three years older and Edith being two years younger. Her mother was the dominant person within the household and she seems to play a major role in Alice’s denial of who she really is. As we eventually realize, she clearly does not approve of Dodgson. Alice was educated by several tutors, Charles Dodgson being one. Dodgson met Alice initially when she was 4, and in his diary noted that he “will mark this day with a white stone.”7 It is clear that he singled her out from an early age for attention. It also appears that he was the only significant adult male figure in her young life.

She was tutored by him in the early 1860’s. In 1862 occurred the famous picnic boating trip. Charles Dodgson, Alice, her sisters, her mother and the Rev. Mr. Duckworth travel leisurely down the river. During this excursion, Dodgson sat facing Alice and tells her a story. While others listened, he clearly intended the story to be for her. He later wrote

Dreamchild and Biblical Studies -- page 6 Barrie A. Wilson, PhD, York University, Toronto down the story and presented it to her in a handwritten form as A Christmas Gift to a Dear Child in memory of a Summer Day.

Something happened shortly after this excursion that led to a disruption between Dodgson and the Liddell family. We do not know what occurred. He may have proposed marriage to Alice, in spite of the 20 year age difference between them. We have Dodgson’s diary, but the pages are mysteriously missing covering events from 1859 through to 1862. And, as Old Alice recollects some 70 years later, her Mother destroyed all his letters to her as a young child and wonders why…”why would she want to do that unless there was something wrong, something I can’t bear to think about?”

At the late age of 28, Alice married Reginald Hargreaves in a large, high-society wedding in . It was a lavish affair, but Dodgson was not invited to the wedding. From time to time, he corresponded with her regarding publishing details of the Alice books. She had three sons: Alan, Leopold and Caryl (perhaps named after Lewis Carroll). Her two oldest sons, Alan and Leopold, die in World War I. Her husband Reginald died in 1926. From what we can tell, Alice Hargreaves lived a very conventional upper-class Victorian life. We see this in the film, as she constantly mouths platitudes about child rearing and her pretentious dislike of the journalist’s interests in Lucy. She hates puzzles, riddles and is constantly confused by life. As an adult, Alice is quintessentially a proper, well mannered, upper class Victorian who detests vulgarity and deviation from the norm.

Young Alice is not the historical Young Alice: it is, rather, a memory or reconstruction of the Young Alice that Old Alice now creates some 70 years later. Her reconstruction is not just a transcript of events as they were lived. These are events as they are later digested and interpreted and arranged to suit present needs which include having to confront her past.

Dreamchild and Biblical Studies -- page 7 Barrie A. Wilson, PhD, York University, Toronto

Charles Dodgson Charles Dodgson was a remarkably gifted person. He remained single throughout his life, being responsible for providing for his sisters. He was a deacon in the Church of . Not being a priest, he could preach (which he sometimes did) and baptize but not administer the other sacraments. He involved in the Anglo-Catholic wing of that church.

While he wrote many stories and poems, his main passions were mathematics, particular . Indeed that was how he earned his living, as professor of Mathematics at Oxford University. Two of his major works were Euclid and his Modern Rivals and Symbolic and the Game of Logic. Both are still in print.

He was also a pioneer photographer, with a studio atop one of the buildings at Oxford. Many of his photographs survive, especially those of Alice and these are easily accessible on the internet.8 Other photographs of other children also exist.9 Dodgson took photos of many of his young female subjects, clothed, in costume as well as nude. In the latter case, he always secured the consent of their mothers and this concurrence is duly noted in his diary. Most of these were either destroyed upon his death or returned to their subjects.10

Alice Now – Her Struggle We see Old Alice struggling with two kinds of memories about her tutor Charles Dodgson. Some are benign, as storyteller, as an adult male who takes an interest in her. Many incidents, however, are dark, foreboding and dangerous.

What were his real intentions? Why this interest? Why was she singled out? What did he mean by ‘dreamchild’? How could she make sense of his obsession with her, either as Young Alice or as Old Alice?

Dreamchild and Biblical Studies -- page 8 Barrie A. Wilson, PhD, York University, Toronto

Old Alice: 1932 age: 80

Young Alice: 1862 age: 10 Benign ? The Rev. Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) Family Age: 30 in 1862 Dangerous ?

She knows that her mother suspects something sinister. She queries why he confides so much in a 10-year old girl. We see him photographing her alone and she tests his sincerity in a coquettish kind of way. She splashes water on him in 1862 while rowing down the river and uses this opportunity to give him a kiss. She tells her mother that Dodgson loves her and her mother quickly steps in to quiz her. Her older sister, Lorina, comes quickly to the rescue by saying that “he loves us all.” The relationship with Alice and Dodgson is touched by sexual innuendo and tension and we wonder where it is leading.

What was the nature of his interest in her? Was it a romantic attachment to the innocence of childhood? That was a Victorian discovery and Romantic poets celebrated the purity of childhood. Or was it a prurient interest? Was there some sexual purpose or interest behind this attachment to child-friends?

Dreamchild and Biblical Studies -- page 9 Barrie A. Wilson, PhD, York University, Toronto Was there a far darker side, however? Were these child-friends perhaps in denial? Was Alice? Was it latent pedophilia? What was it that Old Alice suspects was lurking in those encounters some seventy years prior? What was it that she cannot bear now to think?

As she puts it, “Dodgson is coming back to haunt me.” What’s happening here?

Before we reach the resolution, another triangle is introduced. There are three different environments, all intertwined. There is, for instance, the New York environment. Like the Alice in the story who fell down a rabbit hole into Wonderland, Old Alice has had a trans-Atlantic voyage. She too has now fallen into a different world. She is confronted with a booming, bustling city, and she is confused by the noise, the confusion and by all the attention paid to her, not as Old Alice but as the Young Alice. Everyone wants her to be the Alice of their , Young Alice, and they ignore Old Alice with all her insecurities and all her inability to have understood her life. She does not immediately grasp that they expect her to be the Alice of everyone’s childhood.

There is also the Oxford environment, the Young Alice with her family. She is depicted developing a growing interest in boys, like Reginald Hargreaves, whom we see in the film. We observe Dodgson jealous of her growing interests, warning her not to lose her head to the first spotted youth who comes along.

One year after the famous summer picnic boating trip, Dodgson presents her with a handwritten story, but the timing could not have been worse. She is torn between recognizing the gift and wanting to join her sisters and “Reggy” outside, so much so that for a second, she forgets the book and has to come back to retrieve it. She dismisses him with the understandable child-like comment, “but it’s only a book, isn’t it?” But no, it is not just a book. We, of course, we see the tremendous hurt and dashed hopes and

Dreamchild and Biblical Studies -- page 10 Barrie A. Wilson, PhD, York University, Toronto crushing disappointment at his failure to connect with her during one of the greatest moments of his life.

Later on, Dodgson is humiliated as he tries to sing the Song of the Mock in the company of Alice and Reginald (with sisters and Mother), but ends up stuttering as he comes to “will you, won’t you, join the dance.” Alice joins in the laughter and we sense his pain and humiliation.

Then there is also the Wonderland environment. We see Wonderland, however, through mixed eyes, that of the child as well as that of the adult. Surprisingly, rather than being the lovely, enchanting environment we might expect, filled with marvelous beings and strange doings, it is instead a dark, foreboding, accusatory place. It is not a place Alice wants to be and she is reviled by the accusations of the Mad Hatter who tells her that she is “old, old, old.”

What was this frightening environment that Dodgson created for her? Why is it perceived to be so terrifying? What has she long repressed?

How is Old Alice, through her reconstructed Young Alice, to resolve the question: was Dodgson benign or dangerous in some mysterious way? What is it that she cannot now admit?

Another relationship triangle comes to the fore just before this question can be answered. As befits a Victorian lady, Old Alice is accompanied by a companion, Lucy. Very quickly she becomes courted by Jack Dolan, the journalist. Like her mother before her, Alice disapproves of this growing relationship. Unlike her ability to figure out her own relationship to Dodgson, she thinks she sees clearly into Jack Dolan’s motives. “What a delight fraud you are,” she murmurs. This triangle, clearly perceived, acts as a clever foil to her own personal triangle, which she does not clearly understand and

Dreamchild and Biblical Studies -- page 11 Barrie A. Wilson, PhD, York University, Toronto from which she cannot yet escape. She tells Lucy that Lucy is in love, adding, ironically, that she can always recognize and appreciate love. Such wonderful irony.

At the end of the film, she achieves a resolution. She breaks free of the tremendous pain of living in a triangle. She chooses to adopt the view that Dodgson was benign. She sees what he wrote as a gift, lauds him at Convocation and joins with him in the joyous dance of immortality at the end. She sees the meaning of “will you, won’t you, join in the dance.” She has now confronted her past and made peace with it, overcoming denial. She accepts who she is, understands what he had offered and appreciates what she had spurned so many years prior.

Working through psychological triangular relationships can sometimes result in the elimination of one of the elements of the triangle, and this is what she has achieved. In a burst of insight, she says, “I was too young to see the gift whole, to acknowledge the love that gave it birth, but I see it now.”

There is one final triangle. There is us, here today making sense of these events. We look at them through the eyes of Old Alice who in turn views them through her memories of Young Alice and Dodgson. Today we know more about Young Alice and Dodgson than the film allows. We have diaries, letters, registers of letters, many surviving photographs and a growing number of biographies and critical studies. Separated by 144 years from the dramatic events of 1862 and by 74 years from her visit to Columbia University, we bring a different sensibility to an understanding of these events than she ever could.

We are perhaps are more aware of such issues as pedophilia than she was, a word not coined until 1896 by Richard von Krafft-Ebing. He used it to describe a condition whereby a person’s primary and persistent sexual interest is in children, whether acted upon or not. We have been sensitized to this issue through issues involving clergy. We

Dreamchild and Biblical Studies -- page 12 Barrie A. Wilson, PhD, York University, Toronto also have the vocabulary and culture of expression that permits such ideas to be aired and discussed in a way that a proper Victorian woman would never have. These are sensitivities we bring to the viewing of this film.

We want to make sense of this puzzle. We want to know historical truth. What was the Alice of history really like? And how did Old Alice, the Mrs. Hargreaves of 1932, really perceive her relationship with Lewis Carroll? Yes, she did receive a doctorate from Columbia University, but did she in real life undergo this gestalt experience and so come to achieve insight into what she was? What was the truth about Dodgson – was he a harmless romantic, a curious pedophile, a dangerous stalker or what? How do we now solve the puzzle about these people? How now do we commence historical reconstruction?

3. Use in Biblical Studies I use the film Dreamchild to make two key points that usefully introduce biblical studies to students.

Texts are Reconstructions, not Transcripts First of all, Dreamchild demonstrates that memory is selective and reconstructive. It does not function as a play-back mechanism or a transcript. We attach significance to selected vignettes from our past experience which we dredge up and interpret from a later vantage point and current needs. We use our memories, as reconstructed, to understand who we are in the present. It is not simply a “trip down memory lane” as we recount to ourselves what we lived through, as we lived through it. Memory is much more creative and imaginative than that.

One of the most difficult concepts to teach in biblical studies, whether of the Old or New Testaments, is that, for the most part, biblical texts are not transcripts. That is, they do not passively record the words that pass between God and human beings about

Dreamchild and Biblical Studies -- page 13 Barrie A. Wilson, PhD, York University, Toronto whom the text speaks, whether Abraham, Moses, David or Jesus. Students often want to point to the text and say, “but God said this to Abraham” or “Jesus said such-and- such.” That these texts are not transcripts should give us pause in saying any such thing.

Texts, however, like the Torah (Pentateuch, the first five books of the bible) or the Gospels are documents which are composed later than the events about which they speak.11 This is easily demonstrated through the history of the canonical gospels. Jesus died around 30 AD. He did not write anything and Paul makes no reference to the life or sayings of Jesus, other than he was born and died. The first gospel only appears after 70 AD. This is Mark, written some 40 or more years after the death of Jesus. Mark’s gospel is followed by Matthew in the 80’s AD; John towards the end of the 1st century; Luke anywhere from 90 - 120 AD.12

Situated some seventy years later, Old Alice has to make sense of her young life in terms that she can now comprehend. Similarly, the gospel writers standing some 40 to 90 years later, trying to make sense of the oral and written traditions they have received about Jesus. These are written in the light of their situation, however, one characterized by different concerns than those faced by Jesus: the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, the failure on the part of Jesus to return quickly to bring about the promised Kingdom of God and the passing away of the first generation of Christian leaders.

In addition, they were faced with a different audience than Jesus was. Matthew was attempting to position his new movement as a rival to the dominant Jewish movement of the time, that of the Pharisees. Luke was trying to present Christianity as a movement fit for the Roman Empire. Matthew, for instance, has Jesus saying as he dies on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me” [Matthew 27:46] a cry of dereliction and abandonment. Luke, however, writing about the movement at a time when he is positioning the religion as fit for the Roman empire, has him say, “Father, into your hands

Dreamchild and Biblical Studies -- page 14 Barrie A. Wilson, PhD, York University, Toronto I commend my spirit” [Luke 23: 46], a noble death devoid of emotion or bitterness, a virtue of bravery and courage that would be admired within the Roman environment. What did Jesus actually say – either one of these sayings? Or neither? We simply cannot tell at this distance. Both have been shaped by circumstances of the writer’s own time.

In light of these considerations, rather than saying, “Jesus said….” It is much safer to say, “Matthew says Jesus said….” Or “Luke says Jesus said….”

Putting Text into Context With Dreamchild we have many ways of “going behind the film” to help reconstruct actions and motivations. We have many letters, diaries, registers, photographs, reminiscences by child-friends, as well as early biographies by family members. These help put what we see in Dreamchild into perspective.

In this respect, we are in a better position with Alice Liddell/Alice Hargreaves and Charles Dodgson than we are with most biblical characters whether Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, James, Peter, Mary Magdalene or Paul. In these instances, we have only the biblical text themselves. There are no other documents that allow us to get “behind the text,” to place it in context. We can only view these individuals, their reputed actions and sayings, only through the screen of the received text.

This makes reconstructing the sayings, doings and travels of each of these important individuals much more difficult than it is to reconstruct the beliefs and motivations of such persons as Alice and Lewis Carroll.13

In particular Dreamchild helps raise “the issue of the historical X,” that is, how we can now reconstruct the sayings and doings of any historical figure, be it Martin Luther King, Charles Dodgson, Joan of Arc, Robin Hood, Jesus or Abraham. In particular it helps introduce students to an issue scholars today call “the problem of the historical

Dreamchild and Biblical Studies -- page 15 Barrie A. Wilson, PhD, York University, Toronto Jesus.” Simply put, this has to do with how we can now know reliably what the historical Jesus of the 20’s AD said, did and went when (a) Jesus wrote nothing, (b) the documents about Jesus, that is, the gospels, are written considerably later, (c) the gospels have agendas of their own which help shape the message they present, (d) there are no other texts that help us get “behind” the text and (e) the texts that we do have vary considerably.

By appreciating the complexities of understanding the Alice and Dodgson of history I have found that students come to comprehend the immense difficulties of contemporary biblical interpretation and historical reconstruction. And they do so in a most enjoyable manner.

1 Kurt Gerron’s first specialty was cabaret and he became famous for his rendition of "Mack the Knife" in The Threepenny Opera. Leaving Germany when the Nazis came to power, he worked in Paris and Amsterdam. Captured by the Nazis, he was sent to Theresienstadt and there he was ordered to direct the fictitious Der Führer Schenkt Den Juden Eine Stadt. He later died in Auschwitz.

2 Other credits include: (as Jack Dolan, the New York reporter) Peter Gallagher; (as Lucy, Alice Now’s companion) Nicola Cowper; Mrs. Liddell (Alice’s Mother) Jane Asher. Music: Stanley Myers.

3 See Philip J. Guerin, Jr., Thomas F. Fogarty, Leo F. Fay, Judith Gilbert Kautto, Working with Relationship Triangles (New York: Guilford Press, 1996).

4 Caroline Leach, In the Shadow of the Dreamchild: A New Understanding of Lewis Carroll (: Peter Owen, 1999). Leach begins the Introduction to her work by writing, “Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born on 27 January 1832. He died on 14 January 1898. ‘Lewis Carroll’ was born on 1 March 1856 and is still very much alive.” (p.9). It was on that date in 1856 that Dodgson first used his pseudonym for which he has become world famous with the publication of his poem ‘Solitude.’

5 Morton N. Cohen, The Selected Letters of Lewis Carroll (New York: Pantheon Books,1982).

6 Ibid., p.140.

Dreamchild and Biblical Studies -- page 16 Barrie A. Wilson, PhD, York University, Toronto

7 Marking a day “with a white stone” was the phrase Charles Dodgson used in his diaries to mark important events, typically days when he met an attractive young female. He met Alice Liddell, then aged 4, on April 26, 1856 and he writes in his diary, “I will mark this day with a white stone.”

8 Google “Alice Liddell” and click on images. Many of the photos Charles Dodgson took of her appear.

9 See Morton N. Cohen, op.cit., pp.151-156 for reproductions of surviving photographs of other child-friends.

10 Some child nude photos apparently have survived and are reproduced in Morton N. Cohen, op.cit., pp.166,167.

11 There are some notable exceptions: the Letters of Paul and some Prophets who wrote firsthand.

12 For dating of the gospel documents, consult any standard introduction to the New Testament such as Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. Third Edition (New York: , 2004).

13 See also Barrie Wilson, How Jesus Became Christian, to be published by St.Martin’s Press (NY). This book will present a historical reconstruction of early Christianity, looking at how early Christianity changed the image of Jesus and separated from its parent religion, Judaism, in the process.

Dreamchild and Biblical Studies -- page 17 Barrie A. Wilson, PhD, York University, Toronto